Ecstasy in Elk's Crossing (Siren Publishing Ménage Amour) (13 page)

I made love to four men in a single night, sometimes loving them three at a time.
She put a hand between her thighs, touched her pussy lightly, and felt a twinge of discomfort.
I had so much good loving I’m a little sore today.
She smiled as the pad of her middle finger lightly caressed her clit.
Being sore has never felt so good.

With a sigh, she brought her hand away from her pussy. As entertaining as it would be to masturbate into a quick, mild climax, she decided it would be best if she saved whatever sexual energy she possessed for her men. Katie wasn’t entirely certain that if the men wanted her again that night that she’d be able to handle them all.

“What a delicious dilemma,” she murmured aloud, her lips curling into a subtle smile. “So many gorgeous men to make love to.”

She combed her fingers through her hair and sat upright in bed, her arms behind her. Closing her eyes, she listened carefully and heard nothing. Her lovers, it seemed, had let her sleep in while they went to handle their daily chores. Cattle, it appeared, needed daily attention.

Yes, cattle need daily attention, and so do I
. She smiled.
Maybe not as much attention as I got last night, but I do adore the attention I get from my lovers.

Katie took a long, leisurely shower, running her soapy hands over her body while wondering when the men would return home. It wouldn’t bother her a bit if they should come home while she was still undressed. As she smoothed the bar of soap over her breasts, her nipples hardened. She turned slowly so that the warm water spray hit her on the shoulders and back and didn’t wash away the soapy bubbles as she paid rather more careful attention to her breasts and pussy than was hygienically necessary.

The McGowans have made me greedy. The more climaxes they give me, the more of them I want.

The tip of her middle finger slipped between the delicate folds of her pussy, and a soft sigh, barely audible above the sound of the water striking her, drifted to her ears. The single finger slipped an inch deeper into her pussy, and Katie caught her lower lip between her teeth and bit softly. Turning her hand slightly, she used the flat part of her finger to press against her clit, and fresh waves of pleasure surged through her senses.

I shouldn’t do this alone. I should save myself for my men.

The thought did not stop her body from behaving in ways it wanted, seemingly without her conscious thought. She turned sideways to the stream then brought her left hand to the cleavage of her ass cheeks. A single slippery finger eased between her buns and into her ass as two fingers pumped between the lips of her pussy.

I’m so wicked
, she thought as the onrushing climax gripped her senses, and her legs shook and quivered so much that she nearly fell to her knees.

* * * *

David awoke slowly with the sick awareness that he was behind the wheel of his car, and that every muscle in his body was stiff and sore from sleeping while sitting upright.

That’s one more thing Katie’s got to answer for
.

A smile curled his lips as he thought about the work he’d done on her car while the rain poured down on him the previous evening. Should he stick around to see the end results of his handiwork, or would it be more prudent for him to put some distance between himself and Katie?

He shifted his body and heard his spine make an odd crackling sound. A stab of pain went through him. Years of making a great income had made his body soft.

The closest hotel to Elk’s Crossing is forty miles away. I’ll drive there and get some decent sleep then see how things are with Katie later.
He didn’t want to spend the money, but his body gave him little choice.
Whatever happens to Katie, she deserves what she gets. The bitch.

* * * *

Aaron crossed his palms over the horn of his saddle and watched as Garrett cantered his horse closer. It was a gorgeous day, but Aaron knew that what made the North Dakota high country look so beautiful were the memories of what he and his brothers had done with Katie the previous evening. She’d given herself completely to them, accepting their command joyously, and because she had, Aaron and his brothers had done everything they possibly could to see that she was thoroughly and satisfyingly
entertained.

“Hey, Aaron,” Garrett said, reining his horse to a halt beside his brother.

“Hey, Garrett.”

“Nice day, huh?”

Aaron nodded and smiled. “What’s on your mind?”

“Do you think she’ll come to the ranch again tonight?”

Aaron could hear the desire in his brother’s tone. The emotion was more than just lust. “She’s her own woman,” Aaron finally replied. “If she comes to us or stays away, that’s her decision to make.” He lifted an eyebrow. “But I damn sure won’t be happy if she spends the night all by herself in that little apartment above the saloon.”

Off to the east, a calf, having gotten separated from its mother, started calling out in alarm.

“Take care of that, Garrett. Calf’s lost its mama. Besides, you and I sitting here jawing about something we’ve got no control over makes no damned sense at all.”

“Katie really plays on a man’s mind, doesn’t she?”

“Damn straight she does.” Aaron pulled his cowboy hat a little lower on his forehead. “Woman’s got my brain tied up in knots.”

* * * *

Katie turned the key, locking up the Mountain View Saloon for the evening. The previous evening’s storm had caused one herd of the Circle-Square-Circle stock to stampede, trampling down two entire sections of barbed-wire fence. The repair work had taken so much time that they hadn’t come to the saloon for any of their meals.

I go a single day without seeing the McGowans, and I feel like I’ve been abandoned.
She smiled at the thought.
They want me. I want them. What could be more natural than that?

A low rumble of thunder rolled across the hillside. It had rained intermittently during the day, occasionally escalating into a downpour. Katie had served only half the number of customers she usually did, and though she’d miss the income, she hadn’t missed having an easy day at the saloon. The slow business had given her time during the day to reflect on the unusual turns her life had taken lately.

There’s nothing wrong with love, but I’ll have to keep my love for the McGowans hidden just the same.
She sighed at the thought.
I could never explain my life or love to anyone else. They’d never understand. I don’t understand it myself.

As she got in her car and started the engine, a sharp crack of thunder made her flinch. It was going to be another night of violent thunderstorms and dangerous winds. Katie was new to Elk’s Crossing, but she could feel in her bones the impending tumult.

She stepped on the accelerator, deciding it would be best to hotfoot it to the Circle-Square-Circle Ranch, wanting to get there before the weather turned worse.

Katie was driving faster than she normally would have and was just banking into a sharp left-hand curve when she felt the front left wheel of her car fall off. She tried for the brake, but an instant later she was sailing off the highway and through the air, careening downward at sixty miles an hour.

And then there was nothing but blackness.

* * * *

“She’s not coming,” Garrett said dismally. “I thought for sure she’d come.”

Aaron closed the paperback western he’d been reading and set the book aside. “You’ve known from the very beginning that the decision is always in her hands. She didn’t come tonight. Maybe she’ll come tomorrow night.”

“Maybe we should go look for her.”

Aaron shook his head. “Katie’s made a decision, and we’ve got to respect that even if we don’t like it. If we show up at her house, it’ll look like we’re stalking her. We’ve got to be patient, that’s all.”

Garrett nodded in agreement, muttering, “Even if it kills us.”

* * * *

Aaron was at the wheel of his pickup truck, and though he wouldn’t admit it to any of his brothers, he was anticipating seeing Katie more than he had thought possible. The weather had finally abated, the storms of the past days and nights having surrendered to the famous, wide-open Dakota skies.

“I wonder what the blue-plate special is today,” Blair said conversationally, looking out the side window.

“A whole day without Katie’s cooking and I feel like I haven’t eaten in a week,” Aaron replied, banking into a tight right-hand curve.

He saw it then and knew it was
something
, but what exactly that
something
was, he couldn’t say. Without really being conscious of what he was doing, he put his foot on the brake.

“What’s up?” Blair asked.

“I don’t know.” Aaron braked harder, slowing the pickup rapidly.

From the truck behind him, he heard Flynn yell out, “What the hell are you doing?”

A sick, hollow feeling came to life in the pit of Aaron’s stomach. He still didn’t know what had drawn his attention, but a cold dread had suddenly gripped his soul. He whipped the pickup into a tire-squealing U-turn and tromped down hard on the accelerator. The big V-8 engine roared.

“Down there,” Aaron said, pointing off the road to an area where there were white-bark pine trees with freshly broken branches. “Someone’s gone off the road and crashed there.”

“It can’t be Katie,” Blair said sharply. “It just can’t be.”

Aaron was out of the pickup and hurtling down the ditch and through the trees in an instant, oblivious to the branches that slapped his face and impeded his progress. Then he saw the rear of a car that had broken the branches and knew that his worst fears had come true. It was Katie’s car. But was she in it?

“Don’t move her,” Blair said, in hot pursuit of his brother. “If she’s hurt bad, the best thing to do is call the paramedics.”

Even before he got to the driver’s-side door, Aaron pictured what had happened in his mind’s eye. Katie would have been driving to see them at the Circle-Square-Circle Ranch, and probably had a tire blowout as she was making the turn. With no side rails to stop her, she sailed off the highway and down the hillside into the trees. Though the trees must have slowed her downward plunge, they also hid her car and the fact of the accident from all the traffic that had driven by since then.

She was slumped over the steering wheel, her face turned toward Aaron, her cheek on the white airbag that had deployed. The entire front of the car had collapsed inward, with the engine compartment shoved nearly into the passenger compartment. The car had buckled so completely that the drive train had bent, and the doors couldn’t be opened.

“Break the passenger-side window. Garrett, you’re the smallest of us, so you crawl in and see if you can find a pulse.”

When the passenger-side window broke, Katie’s lashes fluttered momentarily before she opened her eyes. With a groan, Katie pushed herself away from the steering wheel, leaning back until her head was against the headrest. But with the car angling nose-down so sharply, gravity was against her, and she soon crossed her arms over the wheel and put her head on them.

“Can you hear me?” Aaron asked, his heart swelling with relief. “Do you think anything’s broken?”

“My seatbelt’s jammed or something.” She gave Aaron a faltering smile. “The damned thing won’t let me go. I’ve been in here all night.”

Garrett’s jackknife made quick work of the seatbelt, and soon the four McGowan brothers helped Katie crawl out through the passenger-side window. In defiance of her protests, they took her back to the Circle-Square-Circle Ranch, eased off her clothes, and put her in the comfortable bed.

“You’re staying in bed and resting,” Aaron said, the tone of his voice suggesting he was willing to tie her to the bed to keep her there. “Are you sure you don’t want to see a doctor?”

“Absolutely positive. The airbag saved me, and the worst injury I’ve got is a bruised knee and a sprained thumb from the steering wheel.” She gave the men a soft, grateful smile. “Thank you for coming to my rescue. I was afraid I’d stay buried in those trees forever.”

“If there’s anything you need,” Garrett said, shifting his weight nervously from boot to boot, “all you have to do is ask. There isn’t anything you can ask for that you can’t have.”

“I’ll be fine. I’m just tired. As you can guess, I didn’t get a lot of sleep last night.”

* * * *

“It wasn’t a blowout, and her tire didn’t just magically fall off because of bad luck,” Aaron said, his voice taut with suppressed fury. “Look here.” He pointed to the wheel bolts that hold the rim in place. “Only one of the bolts is stripped. The threads on the other three are in perfect condition.”

“That means somebody removed three of the four lug nuts holding the tire in place.” Blair’s hands balled into menacing fists. “This isn’t prairie land that’s nice and flat. This is mountain country. A tire can take a lot of lateral strain up here. Whoever did that was trying to kill her and make it look like an accident.”

Aaron nodded and tilted his Stetson back on his head. “Someone wants her dead. From now on, she stays at the ranch, and we always leave one of us on duty guarding her. Agreed?”

“Agreed.”

“What kind of psycho would want to kill someone as sweet and gentle as Katie?” Aaron asked.

“I don’t know, but I’m not going to rest until I find out who it is and make sure that he’s stopped permanently. Agreed?”

Aaron replied, “Agreed.”

* * * *

Sheriff Dixon looked at the wheel, his lips pursed into a thin, unpleasant line.

“The threads on three of the bolts show the normal wear and tear of an old car, but it’s clear that the lug nuts were removed with a wrench. The third bolt is stripped, which means it had a nut on it when the pressure of going through a curve in the highway proved to be too great.” Aaron tugged his Stetson a little lower on his brow and battled with himself to keep his furious rage under control. “Someone tampered with Katie’s wheel.”